Paul Mackenzie, the Kenyan cult leader who instructed his followers to starve themselves to death in anticipation of the apocalypse, has been sentenced to 200 years in prison by a Kenyan court.
The sentence covers the murders of 190 children and one adult, all of whom died following Mackenzie's directives. The scale of the tragedy is staggering, and the verdict marks a rare moment of accountability in a case that shocked the continent and the world.
What makes this story impossible to look away from is the question it leaves behind: how do communities protect the most vulnerable when religious authority goes catastrophically wrong? Kenya is still sitting with that answer.
Originally published by AllAfrica.